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I have lived in Balerno, a village to the west of Edinburgh, for almost 30 years. For the past six years, we have had a music festival which started out at a week long but has grown to cover three weeks at the end of September/beginning of October. If you are interested in the type of events on offer, the website can be found at http://www.balernomusicfestival.org.uk.

Over the past few years, some of my recorder pupils have taken part in the Childrens Concert but this year, I decided to get more involved and, for my sins, am now on the organising committee. I think I may have agreed to be secretary as well.

Once expenses have been taken into account, the festival makes a small surplus which this year is being split between the two local schools.

Without going into too many details, the politics of the committee are such that they need a Chairperson who is not affiliated to any of the participating organisations - Church, Folk Club, Bowling Club etc. Guess who doesn't belong to any of the above

Gill the Piano wrote:Once your evil plan to take over the world - Balerno, I mean - is complete, you WILL be the tuner/chairperson/tealady/piano shifter/ certificate writer/secretary....

How does it feel to be right, Gill?

On 23rd November last year, I assumed the role of Chair of the Balerno Music Festival after the usual democratic process of course! The Balerno Music Festival started on 23rd September and, thanks to the persistence of our Media person, we got a mention in the Edinburgh Evening News http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/n ... -1-4241357.

We also have a Facebook and Twitter presence so if anyone would like to Like our FB page or follow us on Twitter, just search for Balerno Music Festival. And no, I still do not tune the pianos

Gill, the tuning gig thing is local politics. Most of our venues are parish church buildings and the parish church pianos are tuned by a chap who has been doing them for years. Hence there is no Balerno Music Festival tuning work as such. However, as my local profile has raised significantly through being Chair of the BMF, this may change. I live a mile away from the church, he lives 10 miles away from Balerno.

Looks as though the festival is getting bigger and bigger - great news for the area. Successful music festivals do a lot - people come who don't know the area that well and realise how nice it is. Almost as good as a tourist office! Do you get cup hunters who 'do' every festival for miles?